Last October, President Donald Trump nominated nursing home owner Benjamin Landa as his next ambassador to Hungary, a key position that would place him in a country with a vigorous conservative movement. Trump has endorsed the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, a long-standing ally, for reelection, saying he “does an unbelievable job.”

One month after Landa’s appointment, the inspector general of Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services issued a blunt audit estimating that a nursing home Landa co-owns received Medicare overpayments of at least $31.2 million and recommending that the government recoup the money.

Now that facility, Pinnacle Multicare Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, is suing the very administration that is nominating Landa to the diplomatic post. The suit, filed Feb. 26 in federal district court in New York, asks the court to stop the government’s collection efforts and names HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, HHS Inspector General Thomas March Bell and a Medicare contractor as defendants. A federal district judge denied Pinnacle’s request for a temporary restraining order.

As of March, Landa has an ownership interest in more than 100 nursing homes in eight states, CMS data shows. Landa also is a donor to Republican causes, but his biggest donation by far was $5 million to MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump Super PAC, in August 2025, two months before his nomination.

Critics of Landa’s track record point to the audit’s findings, along with other legal actions against homes connected to him, as reasons that his nomination should face additional scrutiny.

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid, described Landa as an example of “giant corporate health care interests that prey on the vulnerable and use clever tricks to exploit loopholes at taxpayers’ expense.”

“It’s no surprise that these companies and their owners are cozy with Trump: instead of accountability, they’ve been rewarded,” Wyden said in a statement, with “plum political appointments and ambassadorships in Europe.”

The White House and the Department of State did not respond to requests for comment about the status of Landa’s nomination. An attorney for Landa denied wrongdoing in a statement, saying the issues identified in the audit occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic when nursing homes were in the midst of a crisis.

“At Pinnacle MultiCare, patient care comes first — period, full stop,” attorney Alyssa Friedman wrote in an email to ProPublica. “That commitment drove every decision during the pandemic and continues to define operations today.

“Let’s be clear: this is about decisive actions taken during the height of COVID-19 that prioritized patients and saved lives in one of the pandemic’s epicenters — decisions now being second-guessed years later through an absurdly flawed audit of billing paperwork and a retroactive reinterpretation of the rules by government bureaucrats,” she added.

The inspector general’s audit and the resulting lawsuit are the latest controversy involving Landa.

In November 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued The Villages at Orleans Health and Rehabilitation Center, as well as Landa and others she said were owners of the facility. A press release announcing the suit alleged “years of financial fraud that resulted in significant resident neglect and harm.” Between 2015 and 2022, Landa made at least $1.49 million from the facility, James’ suit alleged, through means that James characterized as “looting.” Meanwhile, Landa “contributed nothing and failed to prevent the abuse and neglect,” the suit alleged. James described a pattern of harm to residents at the home, due in part to what the suit said was “systemic understaffing and cost cutting,” which included potentially preventable deaths of residents due to delayed wound care and suicide.

The home and the defendants named as owners have disputed the suit. In 2024, a state Supreme Court judge allowed multiple claims in the case to proceed; in 2025, Landa appealed that decision. The case is ongoing.

Landa’s attorney said her client “merely owned a minority interest in the company that owned the real estate and served as the landlord of the building out of which the facility operated. He had no interest in the licensed operator of the facility and no involvement in the operations of the facility. The attorney general’s claims against Mr. Landa are baseless and a waste of the court’s time and taxpayer dollars.”

One month after filing the suit against The Villages, James sued Cold Spring Hills Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, based in Long Island, making nearly identical claims to her prior suit. Landa owned 25% of the facility’s property holding company, according to the lawsuit. Over a number of years, the facility paid over $15 million in rent to the property holding company co-owned by Landa; over $1.4 million to a management company co-owned by Landa; and almost $500,000 in consulting fees to a company owned by Landa, the lawsuit alleged. At the same time, residents were losing significant weight and developing malnutrition, enduring life-threatening pressure ulcers and repeatedly suffering unwitnessed falls, in part due to understaffing, James alleged.

The home and its owners disputed the allegations. In March 2024, a judge in Long Island ordered four defendants, including Landa, to pay a total of $2 million back to the nursing home, and ordered that an independent health care monitor be appointed to run the facility. Landa and his co-defendants have appealed various orders in the case. In January 2025, Cold Spring Hills filed for bankruptcy; in March 2025, the facility sold itself for $10 to a third-party receiver and changed its name. (“Our facility is now under new ownership with a renewed vision for excellence,” the nursing home’s rebranded website reads. “A new chapter in compassionate care has begun.”) The appeals and bankruptcy proceedings are ongoing.

Landa’s attorney said he was merely a landlord of Cold Spring Hills and was not involved in operating the facility. She noted that the judge found no fraud committed by Landa, that all business arrangements between Landa and the home were approved by the state health department, and that none of the defendants enriched themselves at the expense of patient care.

Landa has been involved with other legal actions related to his nursing homes. In 2017, for example, an employment agency co-owned by Landa was sued on behalf of a class of Filipino nurses alleging that it had trafficked them, withheld wages, and threatened civil and criminal litigation should the nurses leave. In September 2019, a New York district court found the agency and its owners had violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act; in April 2022, the case was settled for $3 million on the condition that the findings involving trafficking were vacated. Landa’s attorney did not respond to follow-up questions about the other suits in which he has been involved.

In one of her 2022 lawsuits, James estimated Landa’s net worth at more than $300 million in 2016.

The audit at the center of the current lawsuit was the government’s first related to a new nursing home payment system rolled out during Trump’s first term. Under the previous system, nursing homes were reimbursed based on the number of minutes of therapy provided to patients, which “created financial incentives” for them to focus on patients who needed therapy, according to the November audit report. In contrast, the new payment system was designed to “improve payment accuracy and appropriateness by focusing on the enrollee, rather than volume of services provided,” according to the report.

The inspector general’s office found that Pinnacle, located in the Bronx, received significantly higher reimbursements from Medicare under the new payment system than the old one, raising red flags at the agency.

The inspector general found that Pinnacle had violated CMS billing requirements in 99 of the 100 claims it audited. The agency noted that, in 95 of those 99 claims, Pinnacle requested reimbursement for levels of services that were higher than what was justifiable when the agency reviewed patients’ charts — for example, billing for speech therapy for aphasia in a patient who clinicians had explicitly stated did not need speech therapy. Additionally, in 54 of the 99 claims, the agency found, Pinnacle provided services that could not be justified by the patients’ charts — for example, billing for “bed mobility and wheelchair training” for patients who were able to walk on their own.

The HHS inspector general’s office declined to comment on the audit, citing pending litigation.

Separately, the New York State Department of Health has imposed three financial penalties against Pinnacle since 2021.

In its lawsuit, Pinnacle alleges that the auditors “blatantly ignore” state and federal waivers for documentation and billing requirements issued as part of the effort to reduce administrative barriers to patient care during the COVID-19 public health emergency. “Pinnacle’s efforts to provide exceptional care to its patients were an undeniable success,” the facility wrote in the lawsuit.

Additionally, the facility only had two COVID-19 deaths at the height of the pandemic — “one of the lowest COVID related death totals among New York nursing homes despite being a 480-bed facility located in one of the most heavily affected areas,” Landa’s attorney said. “The outcomes during that period are the most important measure of care,” she added.

In its suit, Pinnacle characterized the government’s demand for repayment as an “administrative process riddled with constitutional violations.” That request “would immediately paralyze Pinnacle by rendering it unable to pay its employees,” the facility added, “and would result in the shut down of the entire nursing facility — leaving highly vulnerable patients without life-saving care, depriving hundreds of individuals of jobs and income, and divesting New York City of this critical medical facility.”

Industry watchdogs say threatening closure in response to state or federal enforcement actions is a familiar ploy for nursing home owners.

“That’s their constant refrain whenever they don’t get what they want,” said Kevin Walsh, former New Jersey comptroller who investigated tens of millions of dollars in nursing home fraud during his tenure.

“The risk of closure based on the finances and cost reports that I’ve seen seems low,” Walsh added. “They’re not going to kill the golden goose they’re using to siphon profits.”

Landa has repeatedly filed lawsuits in response to allegations against nursing homes with which he is affiliated. In 2022, he brought a suit for libel against The American Prospect, as well as one of its reporters and an editor, following an investigation titled “The Nursing Home Slumlord Manifesto.” Years earlier, he sued freelancers writing for ProPublica, also alleging defamation. Judges dismissed both cases.

Landa’s nomination remains under consideration by the Senate Foreign Relations committee. (No hearing has been scheduled.) But if confirmed as ambassador to Hungary, Landa would hold a powerful position.

Hungary, despite its small population and historically minor role in U.S. foreign policy, holds increasing symbolic importance in the global conservative movement.

In a mid-February visit to Budapest, Trump administration officials reinforced their support for Orban. Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed an agreement to nurture Hungary’s civilian nuclear program. (The country does not presently have nuclear weapons, according to the World Nuclear Association, an international organization that publishes reports on global nuclear activity.)

“We are entering this golden era of relations between our countries,” Rubio said in a press conference in Budapest, “not simply because of the alignment of our people, but because of the relationship that you have with the president of the United States.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is fielding pressure from the White House to relax his controversial approach to vaccine policies as the midterms near, but his most steadfast supporters are pressing for more aggressive action — like restricting covid-19 vaccines and pesticide use — to carry out the Make America Healthy Again agenda.

The tensions risk fraying Kennedy’s dynamic MAHA coalition, potentially driving away critical supporters who helped fuel President Donald Trump’s 2024 election win.

The movement’s grassroots membership includes suburbanites, women, and independents who are generally newer entrants to the GOP and laser-focused on achieving certain results around the nation’s food supply and vaccines.

Promoting healthy foods tops their list and will be at the center of the White House’s pitch to voters during the midterm election cycle.

“President Trump’s mass appeal partly lies in his willingness to question our country’s broken status quo,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement. “That includes food standards and nutrition guidelines that have helped fuel America’s chronic disease epidemic. Overhauling our food supply and nutrition standards to deliver on the MAHA agenda remains a key priority for both the President and his administration.”

At the same time, with most Americans opposing efforts to undermine vaccines, the White House has cooled on Kennedy’s aggressive policies to curb vaccines and MAHA’s interest in tamping down environmental chemicals that are linked to disease.

The result: Republicans are realizing just how demanding the MAHA vote can be. Moms Across America leader Zen Honeycutt warned that Republicans are facing their biggest setback yet with the MAHA movement, after Trump signed an executive order to support production of glyphosate, a herbicide the World Health Organization has linked to cancer.

“It has caused the biggest uproar in MAHA,” Honeycutt said during a CNN interview in late February.

A White House Warning

Trump’s top pollster, Tony Fabrizio, cautioned in December that an embrace of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine policies could cost politicians their jobs this year.

Eight in 10 MAHA voters and 86% of all voters believe vaccines save lives, his poll of 1,000 voters in 35 competitive districts found.

“In the districts that will decide the control of the House of Representatives next year, Republican and Democratic candidates who support eliminating long standing vaccine requirements will pay a price in the election,” a memo on the poll stated.

The White House has since shaken up senior staffing at HHS, including removing Jim O’Neill from the deputy secretary role and his job as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in which he curtailed the agency’s childhood vaccination recommendations. Ralph Abraham, a vaccine skeptic who as Louisiana’s surgeon general suspended its vaccination promotion program last year, stepped down as the CDC’s principal deputy director in late February.

Jay Bhattacharya, a doctor who said in congressional testimony that he doesn’t believe vaccines cause autism, is now running the CDC in addition to directing the National Institutes of Health.

Though Trump himself has frequently espoused doubts and mistruths about vaccines, polling around anti-vaccine policy has undoubtedly shaken the White House’s confidence during a tough midterm election year, said former U.S. Rep. Larry Bucshon, an Indiana Republican and retired doctor who left Congress last year.

Bucshon said Republicans can’t risk alienating voters, especially parents of young children who might be moved by Democratic attack ads on the topic at a time when hundreds of measles cases are popping up across the U.S.

“That’s the reason you’re seeing the White House get nervous about it,” Bucshon said. “This is just the political reality of it.”

Kennedy built some of his MAHA following with calls to end federal approval and recommendations for the covid vaccines during the pandemic. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a federal panel of outside experts who were handpicked by Kennedy to develop national vaccine recommendations, is expected to review and possibly withdraw its recommendation for covid shots. Its February meeting was postponed and is now scheduled for March 18-19, when the panel plans to discuss injuries from covid vaccines, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon confirmed on March 11.

“I’m not deaf to the calls that we need to get the covid vaccine mRNA products off the market. All I can say is stay tuned and wait for the upcoming ACIP meeting,” ACIP Vice Chair Robert Malone said on MJTruthUltra, a conservative account on the social platform X, before the meeting was postponed. “If the FDA won’t act, there are other entities that will.”

No Fury Like Scorned MAHA Moms

Bipartisan support is also extremely high — above 80% — for another core tenet of the MAHA agenda: eliminating the use of certain pesticides on crops.

But MAHA leaders were incensed when Trump issued a Feb. 18 executive order promoting the production of glyphosate, a chemical used in weed killers sprayed on U.S. crops and which Kennedy has railed against and sued over because of its reported links to cancer.

“There’s gonna be ups and downs, and there is zero question that this week was a down,” Calley Means, a senior adviser to the health secretary and a former White House employee, told a MAHA rally in Austin, Texas, on Feb. 26. “I am not going to gaslight or sugarcoat it: This glyphosate thing was extremely disappointing. Bobby’s disappointed.”

Despite deep unhappiness from MAHA followers, Kennedy endorsed Trump’s executive order defending access to such pesticides.

“I support President Trump’s Executive Order to bring agricultural chemical production back to the United States and end our near-total reliance on adversarial nations,” Kennedy wrote on social media.

Without offering policy changes, Kennedy promised a future agricultural system that “is less dependent on harmful chemicals.”

White House officials are now trying to downplay the executive order.

“The President’s executive order was not an endorsement of any product or practice,” Desai said in a statement.

But that’s done little to dampen criticism from leading MAHA influencers who had hoped, with Kennedy’s influence in the administration, that the chemical would be banned.

Some Democrats see an opening.

Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine earned cheers from MAHA loyalists for co-sponsoring legislation with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to undo the executive order.

“The Trump Admin. cannot keep paying lip service to #MAHA while propping up Big Chemical like this and choosing corporate profits over Americans’ health,” Pingree said on X.

Vani Hari, a prominent MAHA influencer who promotes healthy eating, responded on X with a “HELL YES.”

‘Eat Real Food’

The White House and Kennedy are refocusing their messaging to emphasize one of the most popular elements of the MAHA platform: food.

At the start of the year, Kennedy unveiled new dietary guidelines that emphasize vegetables, fruits, and meats while urging Americans to avoid ultraprocessed foods.

Kennedy has leaned into his new “Eat Real Food” campaign, launching a nationwide tour in January. Ahead of the late-February MAHA rally, he stopped at a barbecue joint in Austin where he took photos with stacks of smoked ribs and grilled sausages. Large “Eat Real Food” signs have been provided for crowds of supporters to hold up during major announcements at HHS’ headquarters this year.

Focusing on nutrition will please MAHA moms, suburban swing voters, and conservatives alike, said Michael Burgess, a physician and former Republican representative from Texas.

“They keep them happy by talking about the food pyramid,” Burgess said. “That’s an area where there is broad, bipartisan support.”

Indeed, Fabrizio’s poll shows equal support — 95% — among respondents who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris and those who voted for Trump for requiring labeling of harmful ingredients in ultraprocessed foods.

Trump is keenly aware that Kennedy’s MAHA movement is key to his political survival. At a Cabinet meeting in January, Kennedy rattled off a list of his agency’s efforts researching autism and tackling high drug prices.

Trump leaned in at the table.

“I read an article today where they think Bobby is going to be really great for the Republican Party in the midterms,” Trump said, “so I have to be very careful that Bobby likes us.”

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This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

More and more Americans are finding that not even a nice vacation can save them from President Donald Trump's chaos.

According to a Thursday report from Bloomberg, skyrocketing gas prices across the U.S. in the wake of Trump's war in Iran have led a growing number of Americans to scale back or outright scrap their vacation plans, finding the cost of travel too high to justify. Citing data from a new survey conducted by the Conference Board, the outlet reported that just 17 percent of Americans are planning to travel abroad in the next six months, the lowest number since the end of 2022, when the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine caused historically high inflation.

Only 22 percent said that they were planning to take a road trip during the same time frame, the lowest number since the pandemic era itself in 2020. As of this week, the average price of a gallon of gas nationwide surpassed $4, with some stations boasting prices as high as $8.

"That would mark a shift in behavior following a period after the pandemic years in which Americans splurged on trips to places far and near," Bloomberg explained. "Disruptions from the war are only the latest challenge facing consumers already dealing with a softer labor market, persistent inflation and a weaker dollar."

Surging gas prices have also led to a corresponding increase in the cost of air travel, as airlines grapple with the new costs of keeping the planes fueled up. Citing data from Deutsche Bank AG, Bloomberg noted that the costs of transatlantic flights booked three weeks in advance are up an average of $200 compared to last month.

“We have to take the gas price increase as a part of a larger picture,” Jan Freitag, the national director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group, told Bloomberg. “Airfares may just be the last straw.”

Bloomberg also spoke with some Americans who have made changes to their vacation plans in the face of these new economic hardships. Virginia resident Chris Rubino and his wife had been planning a 3,000-mile trip to the Gulf of Mexico for their 35th anniversary, but have now scaled back to a much shorter trip to the North Carolina coast. Recent increases in gas prices would have cost them an extra $600-800 on their original route.

“Now that gas is jacked up a little bit, suddenly that’s adding a whole other dimension to the trip,” Rubino said.

The Supreme Court became engulfed in "chaos" this week, according to The Hill, with "tensions" exploding amid Chief Justice John Roberts' struggle to rein in "uninhibited questioning."

According to a Wednesday report from The Hill, the Court's liberal justices drew the frustration of Roberts this week for their tendency to disregard the system in place that dictates the order in which members are permitted to ask questions. This is also supposedly not a new issue, though the outlet noted that the chief justice has taken a more aggressive approach in recent days.

"Uninhibited questioning by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson at Supreme Court arguments this week showcased tensions with their colleagues that were put on display," The Hill's report explained. "The most senior and junior members of the high court’s liberal flank drew visible frustration from Chief Justice John Roberts and others as they dominated discussions. It wasn’t the first time."

The report continued: "Supreme Court arguments have never been short on interruptions, and each justice brings their own flair to the bench. But as chief, Roberts is now straining to steer and balance the sessions. This week, he was more assertive."

During an argument on Monday regarding mail-in voting, liberal Justice Sotomayor "jumped in" when conservative Justice Clarence Thomas finished his questions, despite the fact that conservative Justice Samuel Alito was supposed to be the next one to speak.“

Have we had any —” Sotomayor started, according to The Hill.

“Justice — Justice,” Roberts responded, raising his voice in the process.

“I’m sorry,” Sotomayor said.

“— Alito,” Roberts finished.

During a hearing on Tuesday related to asylum seekers at the southern border, Justices Sotomayor and Jackson were noted for the amount that they spoke, taking up 46 percent of the total words spoken by justices that day. Conservative lawyer Ed Whelan laid out one particular stretch in which Sotomayor continually interrupted a lawyer who was attempting to answer questions.

"Sotomayor asks a 3-minute question, cuts off response after 10 words, talks for another 30 seconds, cuts off response after 5 words, and again and again," Whelan wrote in a post to X.

Roberts' efforts to structure the questions from justices and rein in chaos originated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when hearings were virtual and livestreamed, according to The Hill. To ensure things ran smoothly, justices were given an allotted amount of time to ask questions uninterrupted, in the order of their seniority.

"That practice stuck," The Hill explained. "While Roberts has returned to allowing a portion of each argument to include scattered questioning, he ends each lawyer’s probing with a chance for each justice to ask questions unabated. It’s usually the first portion that prompts butting heads."

Donald Trump, in the 2024 presidential election, not only attracted his hardcore MAGA base — he also expanded his appeal, winning over newcomers who included Latinos, independents, swing voters, tech bros, the Manosphere and Generation Z. It was still a close election; Trump won the national popular vote by roughly 1.5 percent, but he returned to the White House on January 20, 2025 with a lot of converts who were willing to give him a chance.

Fourteen months into his second presidency, however, Trump is suffering from low approval ratings in poll after poll.

In an op-ed published by The Hill on March 23, John Kenneth White — a professor emeritus at the Catholic University of America and author of the 2024 book "Grand Old Unraveling: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Rise of Authoritarianism" — argues that Trump now lacks the "consent of the governed."

"The Trump presidency is over," White writes. "Those words seem harsh and, perhaps, overstated. But Donald Trump is governing without the consent of the governed. Most polls show Trump's approval hovering around the 40 percent mark. But behind these numbers is a presidency in distress. On handling inflation and the cost of living and immigration — issues that matter to voters — Trump has dismal scores. In 2024, voters elected Trump to do four things: curb inflation, restore the economic conditions that prevailed before the COVID-19 pandemic, deport individuals living in the U.S. illegally with criminal records, and keep the U.S. out of any possible forever wars. He has failed on all counts."

White adds, "His tariffs have raised prices, inflation persists, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is deporting people indiscriminately and Trump has started a war of choice with Iran."

White argues that while some U.S. presidents bounced back from bumps in the road —Ronald Reagan after Iran-Contra, Bill Clinton after the red wave of the 1994 midterms — others suffered irreparable damage, such as Jimmy Carter with the Iranian Hostage Crisis. And White puts Trump in the latter category.

"Presidents who don't recover can't change the subject," White observes. "(Lyndon B.) Johnson couldn't get the public’s mind off the Vietnam War. (Richard) Nixon was undone by the daily revelations of the Watergate scandal. Carter couldn't get the public's mind off the hostages in Iran…. For the next two years, Trump will retain the powers of the presidency. He can veto bills, issue pardons and executive orders and even wage war. But he will govern without the consent of the governed."

President Donald Trump’s belligerent foreign policy can be understood by his “abusive, impulsive narcissist relations with women,” says the associate editor of a prominent Washington DC magazine.

Describing Trump’s statement last week that he plans on “taking Cuba in some form” because he can “do anything I want with it,” the bottom line is that “Trump’s megalomania continues to grow because he is so rarely punished for it,” wrote Washington Monthly associate editor Gillen Tener Martin in a Sunday editorial.

From winning the 2016 presidential election despite the "Access Hollywood” tape leaking (in that tape he bragged about sexually assaulting women) to getting reelected in 2024 even though he was found liable by a civil jury for the sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll, Trump has learned that he can harm others with impunity — and that translates into his policy choices.

“But, of course, ‘I can do anything’ isn’t just Trump’s modus operandi with women,” Martin wrote. “It’s his mantra—how he moves through life: selfishly, chaotically, with little forethought and no expectation of consequences. And we’ve seen how that translates into policy; from tariffs to vaccines to DOGE, from Minneapolis to Venezuela to Iran.”

Martin added, “Turns out, if you’re an abusive, impulsive narcissist in your relations with women, you tend to be one in other areas of life, too. Who would’ve thought?”

There is good news for anti-Trumpers in that Trump’s attitude of invincibility does not translate into actual invincibility, Martin pointed out. He failed to repeal Obamacare, contain the COVID-19 pandemic, steal the 2020 presidential election or convince America’s former allies to back his reckless military venture in Iran.

“Even a military superpower needs allies in war, and allies are hard to find when war is waged on specious grounds without a diplomatic endgame,” Martin concluded regarding the last point. “Under different circumstances, the president being forced to reckon with the consequences of his actions may have brought solace—even glee—to some. Alas, the repercussions of this mess will come for us all.”

Martin’s concern over a possible US invasion of Cuba is based on Trump’s recent fixation on the Caribbean island country. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents are Cuban immigrants and who is a staunch opponent of that nation’s longstanding Communist regime, has long called for the island to be democratized.

"There is a very personal and corrupt agenda that he is carrying out, which seems to be sacrificing the national interests of the U.S. in order to advance this very extremist approach," Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla told the AP in October about Rubio.

In response to additional Trump threats in January, Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel told Reuters that "Cuba is a free, independent, and sovereign nation. Nobody dictates what we do. Cuba does not attack; it has been attacked by the U.S. for 66 years, and it does not threaten; it prepares, ready to defend the homeland to the last drop of blood."

First Lady Melania Trump is leading the United Nations Security Council next week, and it's prompting some to wonder what the angle is for the Trumps to benefit.

Writing for The Guardian on Saturday, columnist Arwa Mahdawi explained, "It is my working hypothesis that there are only two reasons a Trump ever does anything: money or malice."

So, she speculated, what is behind the new decision to take Mrs. Trump away from her meme coin, coffee table books, and filmmaking?

"I’m not sure holding the gavel at Monday’s security council session is particularly lucrative, so file this one under 'malice,'" wrote Mahdawi. "Foisting Melania on the Security Council as the U.S. assumes the body’s rotating monthly presidency sends a clear message to the world about just how seriously the Trump administration takes the UN. It feels like an attempt to undermine the credibility of the UN and multilateralism more broadly."

She recalled Trump's overall hatred that manifested during the COVID-19 crisis toward the World Health Organization in 2020, along with his ongoing abandonment of 66 other international organizations.

Daniel Forti, head of UN affairs at the International Crisis Group, told NPR that the "symbolism is unequivocal."

"It’s that the US really wants to dictate its own terms to the rest of the multilateral system and wants to work with the UN in a way where it really sets the agenda," he said.

Several months ago, Trump announced he was forming his own group of the united nations called the "Board of Peace," where he, and only he, will be the leader, and joining will cost $1 billion. The president announced last week that he was handing over $10 billion in taxpayer dollars to run the organization, though those funds have not yet been approved by Congress. The current goal is to rebuild Gaza, he said, but during a speech before the meeting last week, Trump claimed they are "going to go far beyond Gaza."

Mahdawi sees it as nothing more than "a vehicle for rampant profiteering."

Behind the scenes, Mahdawi said that a number of diplomats are fearful that it will become a shadow version of the United Nations, that favors the Americans.

"All of which must be very exciting for our first lady, who is clearly keen to try her hand at international diplomacy," Mahdawi closed. "Perhaps, after her valuable work experience stint at the United Nations on Monday, Melania will also find herself a nice little role on the Board of Peace. And maybe Ivanka Trump, who the president once thought about installing as the head of the World Bank, will also return to public life. Whatever happens, I think we can all agree that we’re terribly lucky to have such a talented ruling family. FIFA, I hope you’re paying attention; time to give Melania her own peace prize, don’t you think?"

One of President Donald Trump's big plans has been to open risky investment markets for anyone who wants to participate using their retirement funding. Now there is a fear that doing so could push markets teetering over a cliff.

Politico opened Friday with a bombshell: the financial markets are starting to crack amid Trump's troubled economy.

"The Labor Department is planning to roll out a long-awaited proposal that would offer workers invested in retirement products like 401(k)s access to the so-called private markets — a class of highly coveted but risky investments that have historically been walled off from the masses," Politico explained.

It's coming at the worst moment, however, as the private credit industry faces "a reckoning from investors." Politico noted that some even refer to it as a "shadow banking system." The industry is made up of companies that buy loans from Wall Street firms that aren't part of a typical home or car loan. It's a $2 trillion industry.

The issue is that investors are pulling their money after a "string of blow-ups," as Politico described. At the same time, the world of artificial intelligence has posed a risk to some software companies. So, investors are growing so worried that they're pulling their money out to such an extreme that they hit withdrawal limits.

It's making financial experts recall the lead-up to the 2008 crash. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is now sounding the same alarm as Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, saying that retirees could be in potential danger.

“It’s the perfect storm,” investor Danny Moses told Politico. He was among those who bet against the subprime mortgage debt and became the inspiration for the book and film "The Big Short."

“They’ll have no choice but to bail out this entire industry if it goes off a cliff. It will impact retail investors, the banks, certainly private equity and private credit," he said.

Market freakouts aren't new for Trump, however, as he was at the helm of the COVID-19 pandemic that set about a global financial catastrophe. Luckily, the quick sell-offs have rebounded, but these recent concerns might be the ultimate test as to whether Trump is willing to completely deregulate Wall Street.

The private markets can be high reward for some but they're also high risk and "less transparent than the stocks and bonds that drive many Americans’ retirement accounts," the report explained.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that there is a concern that these markets could simply become a "dumping ground" for bad assets. He wants people to have the freedom to throw their money into it but hopes it can be dome in "a safe, sound and smart way."

However, the private credit industry assumes Congress will have its own thoughts on the matter, particularly because every issue is up for grabs in an election year.

As Sen. Warren explained it, “this is the worst possible moment” to open these markets to retirement investments. She, like many, are concerned about the lack of transparency and the reality of the returns.

As the report continued, it explained that the industry is desperately trying to assuage those fears.